Broussard gets 25 years for killing Chauncey Bailey, Odell Roberson

OAKLAND — The man who gunned down journalist Chauncey Bailey and another man on instructions from the leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison.

Devaughndre Broussard, 23, will spend at least 21 years behind bars following the decision by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon to accept the terms of a plea deal. Under the terms of the agreement, Broussard admitted to shooting Bailey and another man, and testified against bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV and his accomplice, Antoine Mackey.

Reardon dismissed Mackey’s claim that Broussard’s testimony could not be trusted and accepted Broussard’s guilty pleas to two counts of voluntary manslaughter in connection with Bailey’s death on Aug. 2, 2007, and the death of Odell Roberson, a 31-year-old homeless man, on July 8, 2007.

“I’m glad this chapter is over,” Bailey’s cousin, Wendy Ashley Johnson, told reporters after the hearing. “He’s going to be in there a long time to think about what he’s done.”

Broussard did not speak during the hearing. His mother, Aundra Dixon, apologized in the courtroom to relatives of Bailey and Michael Wills, who was shot to death by Mackey.

“I don’t know what was going on in his head when he did what he did,” she said outside the room after her son was sentenced. “It was just some stupid stuff. I’m losing my child, and it hurts.”

In a separate hearing before Broussard’s sentencing, Reardon refused to grant Mackey a new trial and scheduled his and Bey’s sentencing on three murder convictions for Aug. 26.

Contact Matt Krupnick at 510-208-6488. Follow him at Twitter.com/MattKrupnick.